Paradisians Learn a Lesson

Once upon a time, there was a place called Paradise.

Paradise was a blessed place. Blessed with a great mild climate and a wonderful sun, blessed with superb islands, beaches and a lengthy coastline, blessed with a great variety of mountains, hills and valleys. There were plenty of natural resources and living in paradise was a great honor. Paradisians, the habitants of Paradise, were in absolute bliss, inviting people from all over the world to spend their vacations in bliss as well.

Being one of the most hard working people of the extended area of Eurapadean, a union where they entered after lots of economic tests, some Paradisians excelled and became world leaders in various fields. Other Paradisians started asking for extra money in order to do the job they were already paid for. As weird as it may sound, Paradisians were giving this extra money to the other Paradisians who asked for it in order to have their job done. The word spread and it became a common practice, sort of publicly accepted, to give large or small amounts of money that were not really earned. Then, other forms of exchanges, in order to get work done, started taking place. Apart from money, people were hired or given public territory to exploit. Almost all Paradisians knew about these illegal yet common practices.

This phenomenon, combined with other bad practices, resulted to Paradise’s bankruptcy.

Gone were the days where goods and services were provided. Paradisians had to take action since they did not want to live under poverty. Oh no, they could not accept poverty. Actually, they felt they did not deserve it.

First thing they did was to enact justice. They gathered the Paradisians who for many years were exploiting the system, donated their property to the Paradisian state, and put them in jail.

Then, they changed the way the public sector was operating. The reasoning was to make it operate like a company which had to bring in profits. Many people had to change work because of this. They redirected those people towards areas which were abandoned and created new cities.

They made things simpler for economic growth. Rules and regulations were now appealing to Eurapedeans or other investors. They studied carefully what other successful countries have as best practices and applied them.

They focused on the assets of Paradise. Started answering questions like “How can we create value to the world?” “What can we offer that other countries don’t have?” and made a plan of focusing for the next 15 years on their five basic assets: tourism, shipping, energy, agriculture and their people’s brains.

After a lot of struggle, yes, the Paradisians made it! It was hard, they had to change a lot of things in their culture and their way of doing things, but it was really worthwhile.

In the end Paradisians learned a great and valuable lesson: they realized that each and every one of them had to preserve their ethics, as the highest principle, even with their lives if needed, or they would suffer again in the future.

And they lived happily ever after. . .

Be Unique!
Jill Douka MBA, ACC